Two Democratic Congressmen asked the U.S. Department of Justice today to investigate whether Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler violated federal law when he asked a judge to stop the Denver clerk and recorder from mailing ballots to inactive voters.

The letter from Rep. Robert A. Brady of Pennsylvania and Charles A. Gonzalez of Texas says Gessler’s actions may violate the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits discriminatory voting procedures.

“Given the diversity of the state of Colorado, and particularly that of Denver county, there is a high likelihood that the barrier to voting Secretary Gessler seeks to impose … will have such a discriminatory result,” the letter states.

It also says not mailing ballots to eligible voters who didn’t vote in 2010 “might make participation particularly hard” for disabled voters who may not have been able to get to the polls and Americans who may have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan in 2010, but who want to vote in the Nov. 1 election.

A spokesman for Gessler accused the Congressmen of playing partisan politics, and said the lawsuit against Denver was intended to ensure statewide uniformity in election procedures.

“Colorado law is clear that people need to be treated the same and protected from fraud. And a Colorado judge will decide the matter,” said Richard Coolidge, public information officer for Gessler’s office.

Inactive voters are those who didn’t vote in the 2010 general election, haven’t voted in a subsequent election and have not returned postcards mailed to them that ask if they want a ballot for the November election.

Those voters still would be able to vote at the clerk’s office or at a vote center.

The day he filed the lawsuit Gessler, a Republican, denied he was taking aim at Denver because it is a highly Democratic county.

The Congressmen’s letter was sent to Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the DOJ’s civil rights division. A spokesperson for the department did not return a phone message late this afternoon.

Brady is the ranking Democratic member of the Committee on House Administration. Gonzalez is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee on elections, before which Gessler testified earlier this year.

A hearing on the preliminary injunction is scheduled for Oct. 7 at 1 p.m. in Denver district court.

The letter refers to that testimony, in which Gessler, testifying in favor of a stronger voter-ID law, told the subcommittee that between 106 and 11,000 noncitizens may be registered to vote in Colorado.

The testimony raised “concerns about the disenfranchisement of eligible voters in Colorado,” the letter states